


plain as anyone could see

by msmaj



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Anxiety, Coping, F/M, Halloween, Thistlehouse, Thornhill, and a little bit of drinking and smoking, but also lots and lots of sugary sweetness, halloween party, it is a Halloween party after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25864006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmaj/pseuds/msmaj
Summary: Most people would be beyond excited to receive invites for a lavish Halloween event on purportedly haunted grounds. Jughead Jones was not most people, especially considering the previous events that had taken place on said grounds. But when his girlfriend is looking at him like that and PROMISES nothing nefarious, well, who is he to say no?
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 13
Kudos: 30
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	plain as anyone could see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cattycooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattycooper/gifts).



> For Cat, on her birthday! 
> 
> Thanks for taking a chance all those months ago and deciding that reading my words was worth your time. I have been beyond blessed since then, and am so grateful that two introverts such as ourselves were able to connect! (Thanks Sarah!) Your beta-ing is a gift, when you bestow an amazing edit on my fics I am beyond words, and I'm just really, really happy that I can call you friend! May your day be filled with love!! 
> 
> Also, please forgive how badly I write when Cat doesn't fix my words :)

_ ‘Tis All Hallows Eve and throughout this great house _

_ Dark creatures are stirring, go and hide little mouse. _

_ Bats line the hallway, there’s cobwebs on the stair; _

_ The veil is now lifting, the other side is just there. _

_ Reach out and touch it, magic flows from your hands, _

_ Fingers burn with the powers passed by time, through the sands.  _

_ Make notes in your grimoire as witches fly through the sky _

_ We must ready our spirit, for Halloween is nigh… _

“Isn’t your cousin in Prague?”

Betty looks up from her computer, the glasses she only wears when she’s been staring at the screen for an extended time sit on the edge of her nose. “What? Cousin?”

He’s waving the square of black cardstock in her direction as he shakes his head. “Your one, single cousin. The  _ slightly _ over-the-top, heiress extraordinaire who has spent the last five years gallivanting across the globe.”

“And what about her?”

With an exaggerated sigh, Jughead drops next to her on the couch. Reaching over, he kisses her cheek before slotting the paper between her and the screen. “It would appear Hill House is done.”

Betty can’t help the snort that escapes her as she runs her fingers around the aged edge of the parchment. “I should say I’m surprised but, honestly, I mean, it’s Cheryl. Why wouldn’t she handwrite invitations to a soiree on the...’Hallowed Blossom Grounds’.”

Jughead is not wrong per se when he says the house is done. Thornhill has been under construction since Cheryl and Toni broke up, and she absconded from her second year of college. She made her way to Italy, where she stayed for a year before delving deeper into Europe; the art, the fashion, the architecture all appealed to her at a cellular level. Or that’s what she’d told Betty when asked about when she’d come home. (When the manor is restored or that vile harpy dies. Her words.) 

He leans over and takes the invite back from her hands to re-read it. “Like either house there isn’t large enough to have this shindig, she has to be sure we plebs all know it’s the  _ entirety _ of the property that we shall be partying on.” 

Betty slides her glasses up to the bridge of her nose as she watches her boyfriend’s eyes roll. He leans back against the cushions, the hem of his t-shirt inching up ever so slightly. “At least we have an excuse to get dressed up this year,” she closes her laptop, sets it on the table and straddles him before he has a moment to realize what’s happening.

“And we can finally scratch the main house off our list—” The invitation flies from his fingertips and lands in the middle of the coffee table as his hands come down around her ass. He stands, wobbly as she laughs against his lips, and she’s carried to their bedroom. The costumes can wait another day.

Betty’s proud, and a little relieved, when he comes back with the Addams. Though he refuses to wear pinstripes, much to her chagrin, she's quick to realize the plum, crushed velvet looks better on him than it has any right to. 

Unfortunately, there hasn't been time to confer on much else. It’s been a busy few weeks. Betty’s been working non-stop; crime doesn’t stop for Halloween parties apparently, and her particular skill set always seems to be more needed in the period just before and just after Halloween. She’s spent hours recently in front of both screen and microscope, scraping particulates into vials rather than getting ready for an ostentatious soiree.

And as much as Jughead has bitched and moaned about the lack of foresight in sending a group of traumatized twenty-somethings invitations in the same manner as a psychopath, he’s channeled a lot of that anxious downtime between conventions into ensuring his Gomez is true and pays proper homage to both John Astin and Raul Julia. 

It makes for an incessant fluttering in her chest whenever she thinks of him. She finds it funny, the way he insists that it’s their friends who are the extra ones, but as they finally turn toward the mansion she sees the seventeen-year-old boy in him, the one who almost lost himself as the Game Master, and the beautiful, complex, eccentric man he’s become. 

“I think that’s Archie’s car,” Jughead pulls their small SUV next to the blue sedan. The governor’s drive is filled, cars of all makes and models line both sides of the freshly poured asphalt. “At least we won’t be alone in the cesspool Cheryl considers a social circle.”

Betty takes one last look in the mirror before tossing strands of her silky, black wig over her shoulder and exiting the car. “And it's a beautiful night.”

Jughead hums in response and then, “This place gives me the heebs,” shuddering as the car doors click closed, the lock tone sounding terribly loud in the eerie stillness. 

“You and me both,” Betty adjusts the hem of her billowing sleeve, the sleek black dress not giving her much room to breathe, let alone walk the entirety of the Blossom estate. She squares her shoulders, channeling the power and grandeur of befitting Morticia and slides her hand into that of her waiting boyfriend. 

The foyer’s black marble floors gleam, shadows dancing in the flickering candlelight. The tables, four round with two on either side of the room and a long six-foot buffet table between them, are dressed in crisp white linens, centerpieces of crimson and black, and not a soul in sight.

“Hello?” Betty calls into the void. She’s answered only by the reverberation of her own voice. She looks to Jughead, sweeping the black strands of her wig from her face, she moves toward the tables. The two tables on her right are full of cut crystal flutes filled to the brim with golden champagne, the left is full of hors d'oeuvres, and sat perfectly center of the large table is a silver tray. On it, a parchment envelope with a red wax seal.

“Jesus,” Jughead exhales while retying the belt of his costume. “I knew Cheryl had a penchant for the dramatic but even this seems a little extreme.” Suddenly looking a little green around the gills, he swallows before speaking again. “Her mom isn’t…”

Betty turns around quickly and lays her palm against his cheek. “No, it’s not Penelope. I talked to Cheryl yesterday and she’s assured me that the bitch is still under lock and key."

"Good, she can rot."

"Should we just—” she twists back, reaching for the envelope but Jughead swats her hand away before it makes contact.

" Really? You're just gonna grab that, no glove, no napkin, just bare-handed in the home of a known poisoner?" He questions, eyes wide, hands grabbing at her waist and twirling her away from the table. “You’re an actual crime scene investigator, Betty. What are you doing?!”

“Jug, Juggie, I’m gonna need you to breathe,” she frames his face in her hands, tilting his head so his eyes met hers. Under the chandelier, his hair reflects the incandescent glow in it’s slicked parting. “It’s just Cheryl being Cheryl. It’s just a party,” her fingers curl and slide down his face, thumbs stopping on his chin. “I think she’s trying to reclaim this place for happier times and this is part of it. Make the bad good or something. I don’t actually know but I know she is in therapy and I guess this is just her convoluted way of working past the demons and ghosts.”

His head drops to the side, expression nonplussed, and he sighs. “Just, use a napkin, or something. I can’t help that my paranoia is bound to run rampant when things like Blossom and Gothic Horror Hellhouse are dropped back into the vernacular.”

Her heart breaks just a little as she wraps her arms around his neck. “I promise I will be more careful as we go along. I don’t know what Cheryl has in store but I imagine this is how she’s making use of the grounds.” 

His hands haven’t moved from her waist, he simply tightens his grip and pulls her closer. “I’ll  _ try  _ to keep an open mind, and remember that this is actually for fun and not a ploy to murder us and our closest friends.”

“Atta boy,” Betty closes the gap between them, pressing her lips against his reassuringly. “Now, let’s get this party started.” She waggles her eyebrows excitedly, tossing the long black locks of her wig over her shoulder as she turns back toward the table. Jughead slouches behind her, his head resting on her shoulder, as her napkin covered hand reaches the envelope. 

Sliding it back across the table cloth, Betty snags a knife from the appetizer table and slips it under the crimson seal. 

Carefully, Betty uses the napkin to remove the parchment from the envelope and lays it out on the table. Jughead slides off her, moving closer to the table without actually touching anything. 

His eyes squint as he tries to read the intricate script from so far away. “I can pick it up if you—”

“Because I’m sure you brought your glasses to the Halloween party?” 

“Oh, my dearest, Gomez, where on Earth would I conceal glasses in this dress?” 

She hears him suck in a breath and feels it, hot, on the shell of her ear. “Are we ticking this off the list first? We are all alone, Tish, you can be as loud as you want.”

Betty can feel the knock of her knees, the way her chest heaves at his tone and heat of his words. Her breath leaves in pants, short bursts of unadulterated lust she swallows down and tamps out. “You are incorrigible, Jones,” her voice drops to an even quieter tone. “And if I thought Cheryl and any of her other guests who’ve already completed their quests weren’t possibly watching, I would absolutely take you up on that.”

“Fair point,” Jughead sighs, straightening up and turning his attention back to the task at hand. As his eyes scan the words his hand comes up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Did she write these? Or did she actually pay someone? Because if she did, as a professional writer I am offended.”

Betty snorts a laugh and reads the text herself. “Oh Juggie, you are not wrong.”

Fortunately, Betty doesn’t think it’ll be too long before they get themselves through Cheryl’s finely woven tapestry of what she deems fun.

  
  


_ Welcome fiends, on this most holy of days _

_ You’ve entered the first chamber and now you must play. _

_ From this greatest hall to the haunted gallows _

_ The path you take shall leave you hallowed _

_ Once, full oak barrels lined its walls _

_ But it’s been an age since the empire did fall _

_ It has been told of spirits who wander _

_ But you must come closer to set them asunder.  _

  
  


“I can’t believe this,” Jughead flicks at the padlock that’s keeping the man door closed, and them from their next set of instructions. 

Betty rolls her eyes, reaching up under her hair in the back and pulling out an extra bobby pin she had used to help secure the long wig. “What kind of party would it be if I couldn’t show off the fruits of my questionable morality?” 

She can barely see the pin as it disappears into the lock. The night is dark, cool, the crisp vein of fall’s majesty. The moon is full but the sky is overcast; clouds cover like sticky cobwebs blotting the light from the stars. “Mmm, I do love every shade of your gray.”

Her lips pucker and the sound of her air kiss carries loud enough for him to hear. There’s a click, the tumblers drop and the lock falls into her hand. The door swings open, a flickering incandescent light moves back and forth across the dank space. It stills, and light slowly starts to fill the barn before it starts to strobe slowly. Betty and Jughead step through the door to find another set of tables and several cages of varying size, all filled with all different types of corvids. 

“Please tell me those things aren’t going to be released and we have to reenact Hitchcock before we can get the next clue, because honestly Betts, your cousin can fuck herself.”

“She wouldn’t dare. Cheryl knows perfectly well that I couldn’t run in this dress if my life depended on it.”

“And how do we know this is Cheryl? I mean, I know you said you talked to her about the party but this all just seems…”

Betty laughs. “Even more extra than usual? Understood. But that’s because, between you and me, I think she’s been missing home, and everyone, a lot, and she just wants to make sure in her patented Cheryl way that no one forgets her while she’s gone.”

She swears his eye roll is audible because while she can’t see him, she knows implicitly that his eyes do indeed roll. “Why couldn’t she just hire a gourmet chef to cater? That would certainly be more endearing, and remember worthy, than having to trip the night horrific down memory lane.”

It's at this point, the birds, she realizes, are mostly fake. No, not  _ fake  _ fake. Taxidermied. Of course. “She’s still a Blossom, Jug. We internalized our traumas and turned them into our motivations, our tools to perform. Cheryl ran away, and now, the only way she can deal is to face everything head-on. Take back the bad…”

“Make it good, right, right…” Jughead is muttering as his hand sweeps across his brow.

It’s been hard, Betty knows, to try and disassociate yourself from your familial legacy. Especially when said path leads you back to a level of depravity that you can barely wrap your head around. While she, like Jughead, have embraced their darker sides, it doesn’t mean that all the bad just disappears when you wake. His demons become characters in his books, their battles scratched out on napkins and receipts and any piece of paper that crosses his path when the inspiration strikes. He has bouts of anxiety that have to be quelled with medications, but some that breathing exercises and soft conversation will help to pass. 

Betty knows it’s mostly been the combination of therapy and lack of downtime that have really helped to keep him from slipping off the edge. 

“But in all seriousness, please, why did she call the elementary school and ask for third graders to write these clues?”

The space between them fills with the smell of apples and cinnamon, the small cloud from the vape pen lingers in the air. She takes the small black tube from his outstretched hand and holds it to her lips. Inhaling slowly, Betty lets the sweet, sticky intoxication take hold and inherently knows that Jughead is going to be kite-like in order to get through the night.

And she is five hundred percent okay with this. 

The pen is back in his hands and at his mouth before she can exhale. Her words come out with a cough. “I actually think it was fifth graders. But the education standards in this county are seriously slipping. You should consider changing profession, I imagine most children would love to learn from such an encouraging and engaging critic.”

He snorts. “No fucking thank you. At least not, you know…” The pen is back in his pocket, his hand now scratching at the back of his neck, the slicked down hairs starting to stand under his ministrations. She reaches out and lays her hand over his and he sighs. “Maybe someday.”

Jughead slides their hands from his neck and holds her fingers to his lips before they drop and swing between them. “Until then Mr. Jones, I believe this ‘clue’ is all yours.”

Betty squeezes his hand before she steps out of his grasp; she’s looking for something to grab the awaiting envelope with. He crouches eyes level with the sleek, black paper, fingers folding and interlocking in front of his face. 

The lights strobe, flashes of wings, and glinting steel catch her eye while she feels out the table. Her fingers catch the rim of a small, cut-crystal glass. She grabs the vessel and sniffs—smoke and peat—and throws back the contents in a single swig. It burns most pleasantly. Almost instantly a live crow caws, drawing her attention back to the task at hand. 

She finds napkins, pushes a few up her sleeve for later, and hands Jughead one so he can start the reading and direct them to their next locale. 

He grabs the edge and hits the seal against the table, disrupting all the living birds who respond in discordant chaos. The paper slides from the envelope, and somehow, through the strobing lights and cacophony, he's able to read.

  
  


_ What is it that makes the Blossoms bloom? _

_ The very thing that sealed their doom. _

_ Planted soldiers, row by row _

_ Did we reap of all we sowed? _

_ Follow the pieces dropped from my bough _

_ Into the circle, cast a Samhain spell. _

  
  


“Did she have to go full on nightmare Wizard of Oz? A path through the maple grove? Wholly unnecessary.”

“Something about a tree, and it looking like something busted it out of it?” Betty stumbles, her heel catching on a root. Though she curses under her breath, she realizes it’s one of the very few Cheryl’s team had missed fixing while covering the entire path with the fallen leaves. (The rest she had incinerated, of course. The maple grove couldn’t look picturesque with all those leaves just laying in hodgepodge piles, after all.) She’s happy to see the tables set only a few yards away. “I was only half listening, but I remember her saying it was the perfect kind of creepy.”

He scoffs. “This whole place is the  _ perfect kind of creepy _ . And if you knew all this nonsense was happening,” he turns toward her, thumbs hooked in the belt loops of the purple velvet smoking jacket, crooked mustache above a crooked smile, and looks her up and down. “Why the fuck would you wear those shoes? I mean, I’m not complaining because you look INSANELY hot but if you knew we were going to be walking over the palatial levels of acreage, then maybe—”

“True. All true. But would Morticia trade fashion for practicality? I think not, " Betty steadies herself at the main table, only slightly larger this time though still round, once again flanked by a beverage table (with a keg of cider it would appear) and another covered with small, apple tarts.

The night glows around them in all it’s autumnal splendor. Fairy lights wrap around the bases of the maple trees and twirl up through their branches. Pumpkins, some meticulously carved and others whole, fill the spaces between the trees, the tables, and line the path away from the grove. 

Jughead seems to be enjoying himself, he’s at least not as tense as he was to start. His steps are lighter, he’s quicker with a smile, and he’s laughing with an ease that she hasn’t seen in far too long. The vape pen slips back into view and she smiles but declines when he offers it. The scotch from their last stop is starting to slink in and much more inebriation will not serve her well. She picks up a glass and flips the tap on the cider, filling one for her and one for Jug, who takes it without preamble. Betty lets out a small sigh of relief when he sips the contents and doesn’t start to question the intentions behind it. In fact, he looks like he quite likes it. She starts sipping on her own, gags a little, and quickly places the cup back on the table, wishing she’d have downed more of the Islay deliciousness instead. 

“This one is all you, m’lady,” Jughead tips back his cup before grabbing her discarded one and doing the same. 

Her head shakes in mock annoyance. “Can you please try and maintain a modicum of sobriety? I’d like to make it to this party in one piece.” 

A raised eyebrow meets her, followed by the click of the tap and the glug of liquid spilling into his cup. “I thought this was the party.”

She can hear the cider sloshing as he lifts the glass but it’s overwhelmed by the sharp hiss of her black, stiletto nails as they slice through the sealing wax. “Only in your dreams.”

Her eyes scan the scrawl, pinching close briefly as she gets to the end. When she turns around to show Jughead he’s  _ right _ there. She sucks in a breath and clutches the clue to her chest with a muttered  _ Jesus. _

He smiles devilishly. “You’re right about that,” his hands circle her hips and he pulls her flush. “In my dreams, it is most definitely only you and me. But we’re not doing any of this.”

“Oh, what are we doing?” she asks breathless.

His head dips and he leans toward her, stopping just shy of their lips meeting. She squeaks out his name, a petulant whine, but he does not acquiesce. “I think you know exactly what we’re doing in my dreams,” Jughead digs the tips of his fingers into the flesh of her waist, the pallor from the makeup looking particularly ghoulish in the din. “But more than that, even though the thought, and promise if I’m not mistaken, are  _ most _ tempting. It’s just that when it’s you and me I know everything is going to be okay. That no matter how dark or cold the night you’ve always got my back.”

Betty shivers almost as if on cue, tears burning at her eyes, she reaches out quickly and grabs his face. While the paper flutters to the ground, her thumbs run up the sharp cut of his cheekbones before her lips crash into his. They have more than enough time to spare, she thinks. Besides, she knows exactly where they’re going next.

  
  


_ Your next adventure you needn’t enter _

_ But prepare to face a greater task _

_ For the next clue will not be at the ready _

_ And there shan’t be a soul around to ask. _

_ Follow these pumpkins _

_ Keep close the light _

_ Only two more remain, dear friends, _

_ To make it through the night. _

Thistlehouse was the big bad. She knew it the way he reached for her hand as its impressive visage rose from behind the treeline. 

He’d only been back a handful of times, and only because his Toni had threatened his personage, so when she and Cheryl had broken up he swore up and down that he wouldn’t go back if he could help it. Yet here they were. She had assured him it would be different, that they were different, that there was nothing they weren’t in control of. 

And control was most assuredly something he liked. 

So she relented: the color of their bedroom, their sheet thread count, his preferred costumes (not that she put up a fight about being Mortica Addams). Once agreed upon, he dove right into the original series, watched every film iteration, studied cosplays; she watched as he got carried away by the sheer drama of it all. Jughead, she was aware, couldn’t help but love himself some drama. She recognized, quite quickly, that he had the same vim for creating their narrative, the same kind of spark that emerged when he switched from writing novels to creating graphic novels. 

Betty remembers watching as that switch flipped inside of him, the magnitude of feelings when he saw his words start being represented by an artist. Then the elation of being beholden to filling those intensely rendered scenes with the words that conveyed all the expressed feelings, and did them justice. 

She sees the way his eyes light up every time he mentions a storyboard, hears the excitement in his voice when his characters come to life, when they transfer from paper to corporeal and feel real and tangible in his hands. She wants to be a part of that for the rest of her life.

She shivers, pulling at the tightest section of her sleeves and tries to cover more of her arms with the taut fabric. Wordlessly, his arm slips around her waist, pulling her close to his warm body.

Sometimes, on the nights when the heaviest thoughts pervade her mind, and she starts spiraling through all the things she should have done differently, he does the same thing. Gathers her in his arms, whispers all the things he loves about her into her hair.

It's the hours (days, months, lifetimes) of listening, of shared experiences, of perspective that propelled them together and held them there. After a brief, albeit necessary step back the summer following their graduation, they came back together stronger and more committed than before. And it's sustained them these last eight years.

"What are you thinking?" His lips ghost across her temple as the tables come into view. 

She smiles, lacing her fingers through his and pulling them to her mouth. Betty kisses his knuckles and nuzzles closer. "Just how lucky I am to have you."

"The feeling is very, very mutual, " he leans down and is met with a sweet kiss. She feels a tug on the hand wrapped around his. The moment they separate she's spun away, the wide hem of her dress flaring around her. She lets out a laugh and Jughead starts twirling her, spinning them through a sloppy tango toward their objective.

It's been too long since they've been this carefree, that deadlines and court dates and conventions and lab work have become their normal. They try not to allow them to take precedence in their lives though, to ensure the living, breathing, real people always, always come first but some days that’s harder work than others.

They dizzily bump into the drinks, glasses clinking off one another as they spill onto the tablecloth. This only makes the laughter come more freely. They take the libations, toast one another and drink down what Jughead hopes is the last vestige of maple rum in existence.

While he ravages the snack table, Betty reaches for the last envelope with shaky hands.

  
  


_ One more trek awaits, before your final stop _

_ Please take this chariot, you've done nothing but walk _

_ Follow the lights, you'll be lead right to us _

_ To cold to enjoy it, though to look is a must _

_ You may not believe it, but heed these words true _

_ Your life may very well change down by the pool. _

The golf cart whirrs to a stop just before Thornhill’s swimming pool. Betty turns it off and steps out, the light emanating from the thousands of cream-colored candles that line the far side reflects and dances on the still surface. Candelabras from three to ten feet tall, tea lights, chandeliers, votives, pillars; you name it, that candle had a place surrounding the dark water.

“Do you think Cheryl spent more on candles than we did on the down payment for our house?” Jughead muses coming to stand beside her, elbow juts out in invitation. Betty smiles softly when her arm slots through the space. She grips tightly, her cheek coming to rest on his bicep.

“I think Cheryl probably spends more than that on even stranger things, on a daily basis,” they laugh low, content to be close, aware that their blissful solitude will soon cease. It’s just ahead—the white canvas tent marks the end of their path.

Betty’s heels echo with each step. She can’t tell if it’s as loud as it sounds in her head but reverberation seems to stutter with her pulse. The table that seemed to loom so far in the distance is mere steps ahead. This time, a gold tray rests dead center atop the crisp, clean linen, the final black envelope lies just within its confines. There are two, blood-red flutes on either side, waiting for the final clue to be read.

Without pause, Jughead reaches for it. “It’s blank.” He waves the card in front of him. Betty watches his fingers slide over the parchment, flipping it between them and examining it before the flame.

She swallows, stepping back. “I’m afraid you won’t find your answer there.”

His head turns before his body, the expression inscrutable. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying there’s nothing there. No hidden message writ with heat-sensitive ink. No impressions traceable with charcoal.”

Her hands shake but there’s nothing she can do to stop them. He’s facing her now, cardstock forgotten it falls to the ground. “Betty, you promised,” his voice thick with the kind of worry that constricts all the pieces of her heart.

“I promised you would be safe. That we would be safe. And we are! There is not one part of this night that I haven’t carefully cultivated to make this an enjoyable experience,” she worries her lip between her bottom teeth when he looks away from her.

“Why? What is all this about?”

“Trust me, I know. Why would  _ I _ do this? Set all this up and make you relive one of the collective worst nights of our life?”

His head swings back to her, expression screaming DUH, with the severe angle of his brows and the depth of the creases that have formed there. His arms cross over his chest as he waits for her to continue.

“I know I can't fix all the bad. But this one thing I wanted back, for the both of us. I want you to be able to go to escape rooms, or watch murder mysteries, or get surprises without triggering your PTSD. I want you to be able to stop looking over your shoulder, every minute of every day. I know how hard you work to get  _ through _ , but I don’t just want you to have to put on a brave face and breathe through all those fear responses. And believe me, I’m aware that this is not a cure or therapy or anything more than me trying to reclaim something awful with something beautiful.”

She steps in front of him, bright green eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. She explains that she knows how much he loves Clue but can’t play it because sometimes it takes him to a place where he’s Mr. Body and everyone around is trying to simultaneously kill him and solve his murder, and he’s the only person in history who can say that’s too much like real life. And she hates that. Hates that he has to channel so much of that pain and anger and anxiety into characters in fictions, even though she knows it’s one of his healthier coping mechanisms. Hates that even with all the therapy and medication and love in their lives that his pain underscores so, so much of him. 

“I really do love Clue,” he sniffles, tears forming in his eyes. 

Betty laughs, taking his hands in her own. “I know you do. And I just want you to be able to enjoy everything, and I know I can’t make everything right. That’s not possible nor is it my job. But what I can do, is be by your side, be with you on those days when the thoughts are too heavy and you need help carrying them,” she let’s go of a shaky breath, hoping the mermaid skirt doesn’t fail her as she carefully kneels on the blanket that’s laid out next to the sparkling water. 

“Betty,” his voice trembles like she knows hers will.

She releases his hand for just a moment, sliding a final, velvet envelope from the sleeve of her gown. “Forsythe. Pendleton. Jones. The Third.” Betty peels back a fold with each of his names that pass her lips. On the square sits a ring, mahogany, with a braided birch inlay, lined with soft, gleaming willow. “Jughead. The person who knows me best. Who has seen all the bad, who knows exactly who I am and what I’m capable of, and doesn’t just love me  _ in spite _ of it, but because of it. You have given so much of yourself to keep the people you love safe. Your huge heart and your compassion and forgiveness know no end. And when I was young and dumb I tested the bounds of your empathy and love and risked everything because I was afraid. Because loving you was so easy and so all-encompassing I thought something had to be wrong. But the only thing wrong was me and you somehow loved me still. Your love has always been a tether, this undeserved filament that's kept me from floating into the ether."

Betty pauses to breathe, laughing through her tears, and picks the shiny wood ring up between her dark, matte nails. Their eyes meet in the excessive candlelight and Betty is infinitely thankful for waterproof mascara. “I am grateful that you stood by me. Helped me 

The hand she holds trembles as she slides the ring to his finger. "If I could form a coherent thought...I would." This time he laughs with her.

"Whaddya say, Jones? Make an honest woman of me?" The ring buttresses against his hand, the pale braid of birch almost silver in the moonlight. “Marry me, Jones.” She whispers into the night.

“For the record,” his arm slides down her forearm and grasps around her elbow. She’s on her feet, level with him before she knows she’s even standing. “Yes.” His lips crash into hers, bodies practically melding into one as her fingers twine through his hair, disrupting the slick without a single care. 

The lights from the main house flash on, music erupting from hidden speakers and suddenly life is breathed back into their hushed, reverent silence.

"Does everyone in there know?" He practically pants once they break apart.

"You can't think I did any of this on my own right? You're the creative and I'm, " she sighs, her fingers twirl in the hair at the nape of his neck. "The luckiest human in the world." 

He leans in again though this time they're both distracted by the sound of people moving toward them. He practically whines, "Now we're never going to check Thornhill off our list."

Betty smiles lasciviously, her red painted lips twist and press ever so slightly against the shell of his ear. "Oh, did I not mention Cheryl has graciously offered an entire wing so that we may properly celebrate our engagement?" His eyes go wide while over his shoulder their friends all step into view. "Save the enthusiasm for later, you can show me just how happy you are as soon as we're congratulated by five hundred of our closest friends."

His eyes narrow and fix. "We stay for two hours, anyone who doesn't fit into that time frame clearly doesn't matter. And then you show me to our room, and I prove to you, over and over and over again that this is the best night of my life." 

They don't last an hour. 


End file.
